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grumpyman writes "A coalition of 49 ex-NASA employees, including seven Apollo astronauts, have accused the U.S. space agency of sullying its reputation by taking the 'extreme position' of concluding that carbon dioxide is a major cause of climate change. Is the claim in this letter opinion or fact?"

Yeah, it's great that this is somehow your big issue now. But would it pain you all too much to get together and maybe concentrate on making the U.S. a country capable of putting a man into space again? I mean, debate is great and all, but I'm getting a little creeped-out by the way the Chinese are laughing at us.

You know things are getting pretty bad when you start longing for the days when a former Nazi was giving NASA moral leadership.

Yeah, it's great that this is somehow your big issue now. But would it pain you all too much to get together and maybe concentrate on making the U.S. a country capable of putting a man into space again?

When I became the NASA Administrator — before I became the NASA Administrator — [Obama] charged me with three things: One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering. -- Charles Bolden, NASA Administrator

What the fuck does any of this shit have anything to do with spaceships? That's a job for diplomats, not the goddamned National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It's in the goddamned name! They should be working on either space, planes, or fucking planes that go into fucking space!

Right now the only thing breaking the stratosphere is my goddamned blood pressure.

Thanks to the wonderful diversity of the word fuck, I believe there are at least three acceptable interpretations of this sentence.

1. The engineers should be fucking planes that go into space.2. The engineers should be creating planes that are capable of going into space and are capable of fucking people or things.3. The engineers should be creating planes that go into space.

Umm, weather satellites are spaceships. And NASA doesn't just build airplanes and spaceships, they also study the planets/moons in our solar system that those spaceships can reach. Earth being the closest of those planets, it's the cheapest and easiest to study. This helps NASA perfect space technologies in a more cost-effective way, which makes the spaceships that actually go somewhere else more likely to succeed (and less likely to waste tons of money). As an added bonus, the Earth is the only planet in our solar system capable of sustaining human life, so studying the Earth itself is way more useful to those human life forms than studying the lifeless rocks that surround it in space.

How is this modded 5 insightful? This is the mentality of a code monkey buried in a corporate basement somewhere while the world whips past above him. There aren't many industries or careers that exist in a vacuum. Like it or not, lack of outreach is the reason NASA's budget and projects are ripe for plundering in Congress; because a lot of people think of them as expendable until they look up 10 years later and see the Chinese kicking our asses in the space race.

Hell, even pro athletes are smart enough to know they've got to go out into the communities they live in and do charity work and outreach to build up positive PR for their respective leagues.

You go on thinking all you need to worry about is that lump of C code sitting in your lap. That's why the damned suits have turned so many IT guys into dissociated lackeys.

I definitely think it's a valid criticism that NASA has it's priorities wrong. However, it should be noted that the above comment if from an interview with Al Jazeera - it seems clear to me that Mr. Bolden was tailoring these remarks to the Al Jazeera audience. Again, it's fine to argue that this is wrong regardless, but context does matter. Judge for yourself:

Perhaps more to the point, the Obama administration immediately corrected Bolden and a NASA spokesman confirmed that Bolden had misspoke:

"NASA's core mission remains one of space exploration, science and aeronautics," Michael Cabbage told SPACE.com. "Administrator Bolden regrets that a statement he made during a recent interview mischaracterized that core mission."

Anybody who still recites this incident as anything more than a gaffe induced by peer pressure, which was immediately retracted, is just trolling.

-Lets start with extending the bush tax cuts.-Extending the patriot act-prosecuting whistle blowers-signing the NDAA-Signing HR 347 - yes, it had a veto proof majority but he should have, on principle, forced them to vote it in to overcome his veto. Instead he just went along and signed it.-the most recent housing relief - which has done nothing to fix the problem-not prosecuting the banks for the current issues with housing - yes he has the power to do this. The DOJ is part of the executive branch-Fast and Furious - why have no heads rolled for this?-Approving the assassination of US citizens without due process - maybe the dude deserved it but that's not how this country is supposed to work.-healthcare law that does nothing to address the cost of healthcare- just shifts the cost burden to other places. How about figuring out why its so expensive and doing something about that?-healthcare law that is touted as preventing people from being denied insurance for pre-existing conditions - but what it does in fact is force insurance to cover such individuals but allowing them to deny coverage/funds for those pre-existing conditions. In other words, mostly but not fully useless.-Solyndra-added eleventy billion trillion dollars to the debt. But more like 4-6 trillion.-not holding the federal reserve to their lawful mandate-established credit card bill of rights that has only had the effect of increasing the expense of credit cards.-Promised Change and provided more of the same as what has gone before -actually and is actually worse.

Give a republican party who's stated primary goal it to make Obama a one term president, and the unprecedented use of the filibuster to block any progress and judicial nominations, and handed a depression from the previous administration and the Tarp debt and the need for additional stimulus spending to stop the free falling economy, I would say Obama has done a wonderful job and actually got some legislation passed that will do good. The auto industry was saved with all those jobs, pre-existing conditions are starting to be covered, many millions of people can now get coverage that they could not before. It is a start. It used to be that the Insurance companies could cherry pick their clients, and if you suddenly had a medical expense, find all possible ways to deny coverage, just to make a buck.

Health care and hospitals should not be for profit. It doesn't work and is why things are so expensive, that and the fact that so many people are outside the system but we have to (and should) give them care when needed. (It's the Christian thing to do).

One company that was given load guarantee's ( I don't think Solyndra got money, just loan guarantees) is one of a number of companies that are being supported towards that goal of energy independence. A worthy goal. If you think all businesses have to survive, your not living in the real world, this is just used as a right wing talking point to try to achieve that primary goal (listed above).

The idea that government picks winners is bogus. The winners or shall I say whiners are the ones benefiting from the governments support of oil and agriculture. You don't think banks with loans or private capital groups don't do the exact same thing?

And if you think SS is a ponzy scheme, you proably think your money is really in the bank too.

No True Scotsman fallacy. There are many millions of people (mostly religious types) in this country who supported Bush, still do, and identify both themselves and Bush as conservative. If they thought he was anything else they wouldn't support him.

Yeah, it's great that this is somehow your big issue now. But would it pain you all too much to get together and maybe concentrate on making the U.S. a country capable of putting a man into space again?

Sadly, outside of theatrics going to space doesn't do a whole lot. Plus, NASA can't do much without funding which has been the red headed stepchild of the US budget for decades. Commercial space will probably do more at this point, honestly.

They would but 49 members of the engeniering branch, with no climate experience, quit and now work for a non-profit with ties in to the coal industry. Oh they also wote the letter in question for the article.

They would but 49 members of the engeniering branch, with no climate experience, quit and now work for a non-profit with ties in to the coal industry. Oh they also wote the letter in question for the article.

False, unless you have a different source from TFA. The letter was organized by someone from that non-profit. There is no indication whatsoever that all or the majority of the individuals who signed it are otherwise affiliated with that organization (Plants Need C02). Also, only most of them had engineering backgrounds, not all (one of them at least was a meteorologist). Link [plantsneedco2.org] to fill text and signatories.

Spreading falsehoods is not the way to invalidate climate change deniers.

They would but 49 members of the engeniering branch, with no climate experience, quit and now work for a non-profit with ties in to the coal industry. Oh they also wote the letter in question for the article.

There it is. "Oooo, but there's seven (former) astronauts in the group. Astronauts are experts, right?" And the scary part is a whole lot of climate deniers will actually think this transparent bullshit actually adds to their argument.

Cause actually carbon dioxide isn't all that strong of a greenhouse gas.

True, but the sheer magnitude of CO2 release dwarfs other greenhouse gasses. Further, it's not just the amount of CO2 (or water vapor which is another 'greenhouse gas' or methane) it's the rate of change of the concentration.

Yes CO2 can be 'useful' and plants like it. Yes, the planet had higher concentrations of CO2 in the past.

The big issue is whether or not a significant fraction of the human (and since we're an apex predator, everybody else's) population is at risk for near term major perturbations in the population's health and well being due to changes in climate that are in part due to rapidly rising CO2 levels which are most likely man made.

Here is my gripe with that: all of modern civilization is built on fossil fuels. Unless those power sources are replaced with something else, any effort you make to limit their use will have a direct impact on human populations around the world. So when people argue for dramatic cuts in CO2 emissions, they are in effect arguing that we should take steps that we know will cause suffering on a large scale because it may prevent uncertain suffering in the future. I say it may prevent it because we don't know if efforts to reduce emissions would happen quickly enough to have an effect, or if it's already too late. And I say that the future suffering is uncertain because we don't know exactly what the effects will be.

I can't see pulling the trigger on a "solution" that will definitely devastate the world's economy, when other solutions will be available in the near future. Solar panels are now less than $1 / watt, and they will be even cheaper in the next few years. Wind power is already incredibly cheap. Moreover, I can't see why we are so insistent on a solution that probably won't actually solve the problems of increased flooding and water shortages decreased snowpack. We already know that large scale civil engineering projects will solve those problems, and that we should be investing I'm them already to address cycles of poverty and famine that already exist in poorer countries.

The big issue is whether or not a significant fraction of the human (and since we're an apex predator, everybody else's) population is at risk for near term major perturbations in the population's health and well being due to changes in climate that are in part due to rapidly rising CO2 levels which are most likely man made.

Sorry that's way too long a sentence.Is CO2 good or bad? I can only handle black or white.

That not really true yes. Although methane is about 37 times more potent a green house gas than carbon dioxide, the concentration in the atmosphere is still so very small that the effect of carbon dioxide predominates. However, as more clathrates sublime that probably won't be true in 100-200 years time given its ultimate effect on forcing.

If you look at the recent coring data its abundantly clear that carbon dioxide increases preceded both warming and methane ending the last ice age, which is what you would expect if carbon dioxide provides the trigger. This is precisely what is being seen now. Methane is only now starting to outgas excessively in the permafrost and under the Arctic ocean as the temperatures have warmed sufficiently enough to start the sublimation process of existing methane clathrates. The problem now is that as carbon dioxide continues to climb there is no way to reverse the cocking the trigger on the clathrate gun. By letting carbon dioxide rise, we are effectively pulling the trigger.

The really scary thing is that from the onset of the height of the last ice age to its end carbon dioxide only increased carbon dioxide concentrations went from about 220-300. Whereas, within only the past 100 years we have gone from about 320-almost 400 and are on track to reach 500 by the end of this decade at current rates of accumulation. This is about 1000 times faster than the spike seen in the Middle Eocene Thermal Maximum, the most rapid rise in temperatures recorded in prehistoric times. This means that we are already experiencing the warmest climate in recorded history and we have problem even though we have not yet begun to feel the full effects of the amount of carbon dioxide that has recently accumulated. If you think it got hot in West Texas last year. Just wait a few years and it will be that way in Kansas City far to the north.

When one realizes that the past 15 years have produced all the top 10 warmest years and now the first quarter of 2012 is the hottest on record once again (by >5F), there's little or no point at further debating if there is global warming, only the question now is what are we going to do about it, other than face almost certain extinction within 200-300 years time?

"There are way worse greenhouse gasses that don't even get filtered most of the time. Cause actually carbon dioxide isn't all that strong of a greenhouse gas."

This is an example of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing. What you said it true, but basically irrelevant. Carbon dioxide might not be the worst greenhouse gas, but (A) we release orders of magnitude more of it than any other green house gas. You could eliminate every methane emitter on earth and not make a dent in global warming because well over 90% of it comes from the CO2 we release. (B) Carbon dioxide-caused warming lasts far longer than any other green house gas. If we stopped emitting CO2 tomorrow, the warming we have caused will not dissipate for nearly a millenia.

Carbon dioxide might not be the worst greenhouse gas, but (A) we release orders of magnitude more of it than any other green house gas. You could eliminate every methane emitter on earth and not make a dent in global warming because well over 90% of it comes from the CO2 we release.

Actually, water vapor [wikipedia.org] is the most common and (cumulatively) most potent greenhouse gas and is given off in roughly the same quantity as CO2 by most combustion and cellular respiration. CO2 is a distant second, not 90%. The difference is that water vapor has a fairly dynamic and self-regulating cycle where excess quantities of it fall out of the sky as rain. CO2 kinda just sits there until plants can extract it from the air.

But atmospheric methane has a lifetime of about 10 years, because it reacts with water vapor. It's a short-term problem, but it doesn't create the long-term trends that are making climate scientists nervous. In contrast, the lifetime of atmospheric carbon dioxide is almost 100 years.

It's the long-term trends that will kill people, not the short-term blips. Methane is a short-term greenhouse gas. It is a large fraction of the problem, but the majority of the problem comes from carbon dioxide.

No, a gas with a short half life for greenhouse purposes is less dangerous. Its effect is linear, while carbon dioxide's effect is cumulative. We are still suffering from the CO2 put into the atmosphere before WW1.

That's why you don't hear much discussion of water vapor as a greenhouse gas. It's a very strong one, but its lifetime in the atmosphere is about nine days. That's not long enough to generate a good-sized weather pattern, let along enough to create a long-term trend.

Let's go for the long hanging fruit first. How about we stop pumping/mining carbon based energy sources from the ground and burning them into the atmosphere. I bet that would drastically reduce the among of greenhouse gases released. (And would have the nice side effect of being sustainable and cheaper in the long run)

I think most people have concluded that it's just not worth the extreme expense of supporting a fragile life form in space. The actual science that human space travelers have done is miniscule and has reached only trivial conclusions. It's just not worth it.Space exploration without humans, on the other hand, has been able to travel far greater distances and perform genuinely useful science and has returned great benefit for the much smaller investment.

Moron. NASA isn't about making fireworks. its about putting things into space. Like WEATHER SATELLITES that give us the data that this is all about. And the analysing it, which is wha the denialits are trying to bury under a pile of irrelevant shit.
And, from TFA:

The 49-person letter was organized by Leighton Steward, chairman of Plants Need CO2, a non-profit with ties to the coal industry....âoeWhat these men and women are not is climate scientists,â wrote Houston-based science writer Eric Berger in a Wednesday blog post. âoeMost are not even scientists in the sense that they have pursued scientific research during their careers, in any discipline.â

We, the undersigned, respectfully request that NASA and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) refrain from including unproven remarks in public releases and websites. We believe the claims by NASA and GISS, that man-made carbon dioxide is having a catastrophic impact on global climate change are not substantiated, especially when considering thousands of years of empirical data. With hundreds of well-known climate scientists and tens of thousands of other scientists publicly declaring their disbelief in the catastrophic forecasts, coming particularly from the GISS leadership, it is clear that the science is NOT settled.

The unbridled advocacy of CO2 being the major cause of climate change is unbecoming of NASA's history of making an objective assessment of all available scientific data prior to making decisions or public statements.

As former NASA employees, we feel that NASA's advocacy of an extreme position, prior to a thorough study of the possible overwhelming impact of natural climate drivers is inappropriate. We request that NASA refrain from including unproven and unsupported remarks in its future releases and websites on this subject. At risk is damage to the exemplary reputation of NASA, NASA's current or former scientists and employees, and even the reputation of science itself.

For additional information regarding the science behind our concern, we recommend that you contact Harrison Schmitt or Walter Cunningham, or others they can recommend to you.

Ref: Letter to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, dated 3-26-12, regarding a request for NASA to refrain from making unsubstantiated claims that human produced CO2 is having a catastrophic impact on climate change.

"Funny how the chicken little's so easily dismiss all the climate scientists that disagree with the claim that the sky is falling and demonize anyone who attempts to point them out."

What's funny how all those alleged "climate scientists" cited in this letter have yet to publish a single paper that contradicts the consensus view that global warming is real and man-made: "That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords “climate change... Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position." -- http://www.sciencemag.org/content/306/5702/1686.full [sciencemag.org]

> What's funny how all those alleged "climate scientists" cited in this letter have yet to publish a> single paper that contradicts the consensus view that global warming is real and man-made:

On NPR it was pointed out that when Einstein published his work on relativity, similar "Statement by X number of scientists" statements came out. His reply, which I think is an absolutely appropriate and correct application of "the stink test" was simply to point out that in the scientific realm, it only takes one person with a cogent argument to disprove something. Science is not an exercise in consensus.

"it only takes one person with a cogent argument to disprove something." -- Wrong. It takes empirical evidence, not a cogent argument. The consensus view that the earth is getting warmer is backed by literally hundreds of published papers each of which cite physical evidence, measurement, models, etc. If there was a case to be made that the consensus view is wrong, there would have to be *some* evidence out there somewhere that contradicts the consensus view. There is not, and that' is why there are no papers describing it.

So we are splitting hairs about the definition of a cogent argument? OK... I will accept that my choice of phrase must have been wrong (I certainly wasn't quoting anyone else directly), and happily substitute your, more accurate and precise wording.

To be fair, Einstein was talking about his field of work which, at least back then, was mainly driven by "cogent arguments" as "empirical evidence" in theoretical physics was (and still is) difficult to come by. In the broader sense, cogent arguments usually precede searches for empirical evidence, otherwise you're just blindly searching for the unknown.

In this case, you're correct in that it seems the arguments and evidence for a warming Earth and that warming being strongly influenced by human activiti

On the other hand, the seminal works on the principles of the greenhouse effect and global warming are out for about 130 years now and no one has offered the slightest bit of scientific evidence to the contrary.

True. The point here is though that Einstein's work was quickly pored over and accepted first by theoretical physicists as at least mathematically correct, if odd, and then by experimental physicists as tests became possible.

Ten years after Einstein first published his papers on Special Relativity, the theory was basically accepted as sound. Even in the first few years, follow-up work done by others did a lot to solidify the math behind the theory. In short, there is always the goal in science of upending the consensus: it's the quickest way to immortality. However, scientific consensus quickly builds up around ground-breaking theories that are testable, have predictive value and that are mathematically sound.

Arguing that the scientific consensus might be wrong about AGW now is like arguing in 1925 that scientific consensus about Special Relativity might be wrong: you're welcome to try it, but it's going to take real work to be taken seriously.

While scientific discoveries are by definition going against current scientific consensus, science-based policy, engineering and decision-making by definition relies on the latest scientific consensus. To argue that going with scientific consensus when planning into the future is wrong is fundamentally misunderstanding how science works.

Yeah, but you forgot to mention that next to climate models, general relativity is a dead simple theory. These days, bright high school students can completely master it. The climate, on the other hand, is a gigantic non-linear system with feedback effects and uncertain inputs. One chronic mistake that smart physicists and engineers always make is that they underestimate the complexity of the climate. The old joke is that if you ask a physicist how best to milk a cow, he'll start his answer with "OK, let's assume a spherical cow homogenously filled with milk." The point is that if you do that kind of thing, you can't have too much confidence in your solution. (Physics is comparably simple, so there you can, but you can't import these heuristics to a messy subject like climate science.)

That's how physicists and engineers can become know-it-alls about things which are actually far more complicated than anything they're willing to appreciate.

There is that, although it's also true that mainstream scientists take money from government grants and related sources, meaning their very livelihood depends on the reverse. And I say that as someone who more or less accepts the argument that global climates are changing. (There, now I can get downmodded by both sides.)

mainstream scientists take money from government grants and related sources, meaning their very livelihood depends on the reverse

If you could produce data that disproved a major current theory, you'd be in line for a Nobel Prize. Not to mention, millions in funding from the oil industry, Fox TV, etc, etc. There are a lot more financial incentives in being a denialist than just producing boring data that supported the global warming hypothesis.
.

Solyndra received a $535 million loan guarantee. Not cash, a guarantee that let them borrow at a lower interest rate that we now have to pay back.

In one quarter, Exxon Mobil made 17 times more money than Solyndra's loan guarantee.

Except that taxpayers aren't on the hook to repay Exxon/Mobil profits.

Taxpayers ARE, however, on the hook to repay a loan guarantee (a few of them, actually...LightSquared, among many, anyone?) that is nothing more nor less than a payoff in very thin disguise to an Obama campaign contributor, as are many other similar loan guarantees to "green energy" companies.

You're also forgetting Exxon Mobil made $19 billion in profits in 2009 - that's profits, not revenue. But not only did it DODGE ALL TAXES, it actually received a $156 million rebate from the IRS, according to its SEC filings. (source [senate.gov])

So please, if you want to rage about Solyndra and you don't first rage about this, it will be obvious to all that you're full of shit.

Solyndra was a government investment that didn't pan out. Given the number of such investements that our government makes, it's kind of impressive that Solyndra is the only one to really go wrong. For example, the government made money on its loan guarantees to carmakes, while also keeping them from drowning and firing everyone.

And how many of those aren't taking money from the coal, oil or other industries whose very livelihood depends on them downplaying the evidence?

How many AGW proponents don't stand to profit heavily off of "green" jobs bills, carbon credits, cap and trade, etc.?

I doubt very much that any climate scientist is likely to profit heavily from "jobs bills, carbon credits, cap and trade, etc." Local politicians, business people, lobbyists, etc. might be able to benefit from some of these things - but working scientists? Tenured academics already have pretty secure lifetime employment. Perhaps we could imagine a few who might be better off individually if the science was one way rather than the other, but the majority of them have little financial stake in the result of t

What sort of idiot would claim that you only need a background in STEM to be a climate expert? Climate science is an incredibly complex field, with certain subsets (such as dendrochronology) being about as nuanced as they come. You could understand, for example, the summaries of the papers with only a STEM background, but you're certainly in no position to critique the research itself.

The question is, who has the burden of proof? Why does the denying side have to disprove the theory? I would say if the AGW supporters have such definitive evidence, then why are there any deniers at all? Why shouldn't they have to prove their position before forcing us all to cut carbon emissions and change our lifestyles?

You ask questions about evidence, but we have NO EVIDENCE. We have computer model generated data. If you want evidence, start waiting because we won't find out the results of our pum

There's one expert there, which is impressive, far more than most pointless climate petitions. Thomas Wysmuller appears to be responsible for at least 10 or 20 presentations on the subject of how climate change is "false", but oddly enough, not one real factual, data driven, peer reviewed paper published in any journal or anything.

How odd, you'd think such an expert who had such strong opinions and spent so much time on the subject would have, some, you know, research they produced. Nope. I see several distinct "alternate" theories with his name attached, some of which somehow manage to contradict each other in general terms.

It's like he's throwing his name behind every single thing that is opposed to anthropogenic climate change without actually being informed. How bizarre.

It should be noted they are mostly at JSC, which is in Houston, Texas, which is the home base of America's oil and gas industry. Based purely on geography they are located in the focal point of denial that fossil fuels are contributing to global warming.

I wouldn't be particularly suprised if its also a partisan effort to pander to the Republican party. Obama hasn't been particularly kind to JSC's funding or future prospects so I'm guessing they are hoping for a Romney win this fall, and for Republicans to retake the Senate. Its a gamble but if that happens, then they can tout their vocal support for the Republican party's position on climate change when they go to D.C. with their hat in hand for new funding. Presambly funding for some manned launcher that will put billions in their coffers, provide them with job security for a few years and which they will probably fail to actually build or launch.

So you've got a bunch of space shuttle guys from Johnson Space Center, which does pretty much zero climate science, asking the administrator to censor the group at Goddard Space Flight Center, which is co-located with NOAA and is the center for earth sensing and earth science about an earth-science related topic? Really?

And yes, I happen to be a former NASA/Goddard principal engineer with a whole wall of mission paraphernalia on my office wall. So, hey, JSC can suck it.

1+2 = AGW, fine, but don't forget to multiply by 0.00039445% (0.039445%), which is the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.Add to that that the 0.039445% is not evenly distributed, with most of it found at altitudeComputer the long-term specific heat trends of the oceans (80% of surface)on 11 year solar and 26,000 year precessional cycles,

Then argue that it's the high-altitude 0.039445% of the atmosphere and not the oceans that dominate weather at the surface.

A layer of paint is typically 1/8 of a millimeter thick, and is close to 100 opaque to visible light. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere amounts to 4 kg per square meter. If condensed, it would be a layer 2.6 millimeters thick, or 20 times thicker than a paint layer. It should not be hard to understand a layer that thick being able to absorb a significant amount of infrared light. The fact that it is distributed vertically does not change the absorbing power of the molecules, you still have the same number per unit area to run into.

Expressing the numbers as percentages is a way to make them seem small, and ignores the fact that the whole atmosphere has a mass of 10.3 tons per square meter, and would be about 9 meters thick if condensed. It's fairly amazing that thickness only absorbs about 27% of total incoming sunlight.

NASA has more than a dozen satellites studying the earths climate, more than any other group in the world.
NASA spends more money studying climate science than all other federal agencies combined.

Those two facts seem to put them at the forefront of scientific research into the earth's climate. Who exactly do you propose would be better suited to launching the satellites and doing the research? Or is this problem better left to "private industry" to solve?

At least (or perhaps "unfortunately") they've finally seized on something at which they're not blatantly, objectively wrong. For years it was "HOCKEY STICK!" and "MARS IS WARMING" and "HIDE THE DECLINE!" and "GRAPH THAT STARTS IN 1998!".

That's been unsupportable for years, and pushed them into the ludicrous position of pretending that there was a vast conspiracy of climate scientists. That was just stupid.

It's still pretty stupid, in that they're still left with "climate change happens for random reasons th

The 49-person letter was organized by Leighton Steward, chairman of Plants Need CO2, a non-profit with ties to the coal industry.

To this site [plantsneedco2.org] and promptly commit suicide? From that site:

Earth and its inhabitants need more, not less, CO2.
More CO2 means:

More Plant Growth
Plants need less water
More food per acre
More robust habitats and ecosystems

CO2 is Earth's greatest airborne fertilizer. Without it - No Life On Earth!

A site with a banner that says "Warmer is better than colder." and "CO2 is Green." and "Climate Change is the Norm." really just makes my head hurt. The arguments presented on this site seem to imply that policy is to completely remove all CO2 from Earth. That is not true. It also grasps at hilarious straws:

In addition to increasing the quantity of food available for human consumption, the rising atmospheric CO2 concentration is also increasing the quality of the foods we eat. It significantly increases the quantity and potency of the many beneficial substances found in their tissues (such as the vitamin C concentration of citrus fruit), which ultimately make their way onto our dinner tables and into many of the medicines we take, improving our health and helping us better contend with the multitude of diseases and other maladies that regularly afflict us. In just one species of spider lily, for example, enriching the air with CO2 has led to the production of higher concentrations of several substances that have been demonstrated to be effective in fighting a number of human maladies, including leukemia, ovary sarcoma, melanoma, and brain, colon, lung and renal cancers, as well as Japanese encephalitis and yellow, dengue, Punta Tora and Rift Valley fevers.

Climate warming increases the quality of your food! Burn all the shit you want, folks! Hey, if CFCs make the planet warmer and this site says "warmer is better than colder" shouldn't we be purposefully releasing those things up into the ozone?

"Okay, if you want to complain about us doing science, then do it in the methods that science accepts complaints." A letter like this is the equivalent of a toddler stamping its foot because its mother told him that cookies will make him fat.

One would like to think that those with an education are less likely to buy into the "climate scientist conspiracy" theory, which is a necessary consequence of what they're claiming. And it's true: out of a few tens of thousands of NASA employees, they dug up a few dozen to buy in to the conspiracy theory. Which does make it "less likely", while simultaneously reminding us that you can have an MS and a PhD and still for the same old BS.

At what point does the deliberate dissemination of lies for profit become a criminal act? If I know my car is not roadworthy, yet advertise it as safe and reliable, isn't the buyer entitled to redress? And doesn't the level of redress increase depending on how damaging my fraud was?

The truth of the matter is, these backers of the denialist movement simply don't want action to be taken. Were they to say what they really think: "Yes, it's true that our actions are causing harm, and that harm will in the future escalate to great harm for humans and other species, but you know what? Screw 'em. And Screw you too! We just want to make money"

Would we reconsider how lenient we've been toward them?

And what of their loyal disciples - referring, of course, to the cadre of radio hosts, opinionists, political operatives, and their loyal disciples, the foot soldiers of the denialist campaign (such as those who astroturf here)? Their point of view is much more visceral: "of course climate change is real and it is damaging, but I DON'T WANT TO KNOW so STOP TALKING ABOUT IT" - this is a gut feel view because the fact of climate change contradicts some fundamental worldview, and nobody wants to feel uncomfortable.

The point is not that people are mistaken, or inclined to be sceptical, but rather, that they choose to view what is objective as subjective. To avoid any measuring of the subjective view "I don't want to" against the objective fact: "climate change is real, and action must be taken to avoid serious harm in the future", rhetoric is employed. At some point, that rhetoric becomes deception. At that point, the person is liable. So a discussion on the point of and extent of liability and therefore who is liable is very relevant and not at all extreme.

Are any of the signatories to the letter actually climate scientists? I recognize that shuttle engineers and astronauts from 40 years ago are probably interesting people to hang out with, but do they have any personal expertise on which to base their argument? 'cause otherwise it sounds like a bunch of grumpy old dudes whingeing.

Just to be accurate (yeah, I know....), Al Gore *never* claimed to have "invented" the internet, but he did push through Congress the legislation that freed the internet from its walled garden of universities and defense contractors. But - Hey! - facts never have stopped a good meme.

Per the article, it seems that these guys mostly worked at the Texas-based Johnson space center:

"Keith Cowing, editor of the website NASA Watch, noted that the undersigners, most of whom have engineering backgrounds, worked almost exclusively at the Houston-based Johnson Space Centre, a facility almost entirely removed from NASA's climate change arm."

Figures.

Why is it that there are so many amateur climatologists in Texas who know so much, but publish so little? I wonder if these gentlemen even bothered to visit the site of the "Plants Need CO2" sponsor, Leighton Steward, to see who also agreed with their opinions. I'm not linking to that site, and I'd surely want to avoid association with anyone with ideas like that.

So what? You could find numerous doctors and scientists with ties to the tobacco industry trying to tell us that cigarettes don't cause lung cancer and how second-hand smoke is safe just a couple decades ago. There is nothing novel about a group of people with financial ties to industries peddling fossil fuels to be spreading FUD over climate research.

I like it when science can be challenged, reviewed. When theories can be questioned. When models can be tested and retested with out being called a heretic and locked in a dungeon until you conform.

If I question BFSS model in M-Theory, people consider it scientific, and willing to debate and explore alternate theories.
If I question the carbon model in global warming theory, people claim it's unscientific, and continue ad hominem attacks.

The counter-argument presented in the post states that the signatories of the letter are not "climate scientists." Well, this argument holds about as much water as the argument that NASA is not a climate agency. Climate research encompasses efforts which require expertise in a number of sciences. When anyone with an expertise in one of the necessary science branches decides to weigh in on arguments, it makes no sense to outright dismiss him as a non-climate-scientist. In fact, it seems like the only ones defending this AGW position are those blessed by the priesthood of the climate scientists or members of the media. Well, if you dismiss an astro-physicist weighing in on results of temperature distribution studies (as seen from space) because he is not a "climate scientist", why listen to NASA which is not a "climate agency"?

Most climate scientists are "not climate scientists". What do I mean? Well until very recently, there was no such thing. It is a new field. As such degrees of study in it are new. You can get a degree in Climate Science these days from some universities (NAU is one I know that offers at least a masters level program in it) but that is only within about the last 10 years. Yet we have all these older researchers who are researching it, and clearly don't have a degree in it. So what do they have a degree in?

Well, here's the thing: these people are not making an argument in scientific circles, they are making a public appeal to a public servant to change what the agency he is in charge of is doing.

As a result, the only thing that the petitioners have that adds weight to their argument is their authority in the field. That means that it is entirely valid to look at their authority in that field, conclude it is close to zero, and refer them to reframe their objections in scientific traditions - i.e. to publish their objections to the science in peer-reviewed journals.

The problem isn't so much that the petitioners are being dismissed as non-climate-scientists. It is that the petitioners are trying to leverage authority in one field to argue from authority in a completely different field. No one bats an eye if an engineer wants to publish a paper in a journal. But if they want to be taken at their word, they better make sure their credentials are in order. And while 2-3 of the petitioners could pass as authorities on climate science (even in a limited scope), the rest really don't.

In fact, it seems like the only ones defending this AGW position are those blessed by the priesthood of the climate scientists

True. Should that be surprising? Let's apply your "priesthood" logic to other fields and see where that leads us.

* The priesthood of biology refuses to bless creation science.* The priesthood of physics refuses to bless perpetual motion.* The priesthood of mathematics refuses to bless squaring the circle.* The priesthood of medicine refuses to bless homeopathy.* The priesthood of the Republican Party refuses to bless higher taxes on the wealthy.* The priesthood of the Democratic Party refuses to bless lowe

The counter-argument presented in the post states that the signatories of the letter are not "climate scientists." Well, this argument holds about as much water as the argument that NASA is not a climate agency.

Apples to irrelevant oranges. If NASA hires a bunch of doctors and comes out with a study on osteoporosis and bone density would you dismiss it out of hand "because they're not a medical agency"?

When anyone with an expertise in one of the necessary science branches decides to weigh in on arguments,

The first question I ask myself is to what extent it's proper for NASA to engage with public politics. (Of course survival requires it to play politics all the time, but my question is about influencing public debate.)

If NASA's function is to study climate change, then of course it has a duty to report its findings. The ethics are straightforward, but they don't apply here. However, NASA does have scientific and technical expertise which may qualify it, or even oblige it, to share its knowledge with the public, especially as NASA receives substantial public funding.

Also, NASA's prominence in the aerospace industry should make it especially conscientious concerning adverse effects of that industry. And aerospace is a significant contributor to greenhouse emissions. So again, it has an ethical obligation to inform itself about the effect of such emissions on climate change, and to share its findings.

As to whether or not NASA is taking the correct position, that's really a secondary question. Certainly NASA is saying nothing controversial in warning about climate change. It's an altruistic position, in line with most of the scientific community. Conversely, it would be at least moderately suspicious if NASA were to dismiss the issue as unimportant, given that this position is directly self-serving.

Now, a group of people want to disagree with NASA on this issue, that's fine. We can let their claims stand on their own merits, while noting what company they keep with what vested interests. But calling to silence NASA is just plain inappropriate.

These rather lame, piss weak dilettantes are STILL trying their old standbys, like petitions, public debates and what not, because it's "demuuuuucracy, it's Amuuuuuurican, derp derp", and that somehow, the (political) opinions of a million clueless, uneducated fuckwits transcends the truth staring us in the face -- that the Earth's climate it warming, it's caused by humans, and that it's going to cost us big time if we don't do something about it.

I see shades of the Nobel Syndrome here. The far Right aren't very bright as a group, and use -- and are sucked in by -- obvious logical fallacies, like appealing to authority.

It's an obvious far-right wing culture war stunt by a pack of idiots and cranks, and likely encouraged (and paid for) by self-interested idiots and cranks.

See, if you repeat a lie often enough, and if you can borrow some fake credibility ("I worked for NASA, I'm so intelligent and authoritive"), then you can pass off any piece of shoddy political propaganda as unvarnished fact.

P.S: righties, libertoons and Randroids, don't bother trying to fisk or debunk climate change here. No amount of regurgitated right wing talking points will change the fact that you are all shamefully, hopelessly WRONG on everything and anything to do with climate change.

The chief characteristic which distinguishes a scientific method of inquiry from other methods of acquiring knowledge is that scientists seek to let reality speak for itself, and contradict their theories about it when those theories are incorrect,[4] i. e., falsifiability.

Actually we do. That has been the point of all that research published recently. What is somewhat debatable is how quickly the Earth will warm if we do nothing and what actions do we need to do NOW to reverse the trend.

Fossil fuel people are all for keeping the status quo. The rest of would like to start changing things now.

Anyone up for founding a non-profit by the name "Plants Follow Liebig's Law of the Minimum, And You Are Paid Shills and Liars"? Sign here. We should be able to tap into the unlimited funding of the Global Conspiracy of Climate Scientists Out For More Cash (TM) in a heartbeat. Come on guys, get out of those cubicles - the GCCSOFM(TM) has your personal Ferrari with a nubile babe thrown in for free waiting for you!

And another Dunning-Kruger idiot who comes up with "I bet the Climate scientists didn't think of this!".

Yes, CH4 is a strong greenhouse gas. There are reasons, however, why Climate scientists think its a minor factor. For one, it easily photodissociates in the upper atmosphere, so there will always be a limit to the amount of CH4 in the atmosphere.